Coating Cautiously

I’m currently working up courage to cut into some wool coating, for what will be the first winter coat I’ve ever sewn. Despite the fact coating was finally 50% off at my local Fabricland it’s still fairly pricey, when you need 3 meters, so I’m a little nervous.

Earlier in January, IndieSew had a “Coat Month” sale and I picked up the PDF for Waffle Patterns’ Yuzu Coat. I’d been eyeing this pattern for a while but was held back by the fact it wasn’t available in print format. I really prefer printed versions over PDF, unless the shipping is really excessive. The thought of taping bazillions of pages for a coat together…shudder. At the start of January I saw the designer had put out a free hood addition to the pattern. My resistance to the PDF started to crumble. Then I saw the IndieSew sale…and this happened.

That’s the main pattern but I still need to tape together the lining pattern. It wasn’t quite as bad as I expected but I should definitely investigate if some place near me prints “printshop versions” and how much that costs.

I pre-shrunk my wool in the dryer per this tutorial and it’s all set for when I finally brave the scissors. I even found Thinsulate interlining at Fabricland but after watching Sew Wrong’s workshop last Saturday I will also be looking (read procrastinating) for some some different interfacing specific to coats. Another suggestion (during the workshop) was using cheap polar fleece to do a muslin (as it’s closer in weight to coating), so I will be looked for some of that as well. It would be fabulous to take the course Lucinda’s doing right away which is specific to coat making. Unfortunately the CAD exchange rate is abysmal right now so I’ll have to muddle along with library books and the internet.

I wasn’t able to find many reviews of this pattern online yet, so I’ll be sure to post how things go. I am doing a small tweak to the collar and want to add interlining for warmth. Unless I need a bunch of fitting changes when I try my muslin those should be my only modifications.